Parklife apologises after showing how not to run an SMS campaign

Organisers of Manchester’s Parklife Weekender festival have apologised for the “unnecessary personal distress” it may have caused by sending out text messages appearing to be from ‘Mum’.

The ill-fated marketing campaign involved sending a text message to Parklife ticket holders which read: “Some of the Parklife after parties have already sold out. If your [sic] going, make sure your [sic] home for breakfast! xxx”

It wasn’t the erroneous uses of ‘your’ which offended, though, but instead that the messages claimed to have been sent by ‘Mum’, which proved traumatic for those whose mothers had passed away.

Among those who were left upset by the message was Ros Prior, who lost her mother to multiple sclerosis three years ago. She told bbc.co.uk of the experience: “I just saw Mum and I started crying.

“Even though it was only two seconds of sheer panic it was horrible. I wrote an email to Parklife expressing how angry I was and took a picture of it and put it on Twitter. Since then people haven’t stopped saying they feel the same and Parklife can’t get away with this.”

Now, following a huge backlash, festival organisers have apologised for the “unnecessary personal distress” their campaign caused, adding that it was meant only as an “irreverent way to engage with festivalgoers,” nme.com notes.

The apology didn’t always look forthcoming, though, as Sacha Lord, the man behind Parklife, tweeted in the immediate aftermath: “So this is what it feels like to be a jar of Marmite! #LoveItOrHateIt”